brewing with spring water.

[Hoprocket]

Hi all, has anyone had any experience brewing with bottled spring water as compared to just tap water, would there be great difference in flavour, making a bushys bitter.
thanks

[BenB]

Lots of us brew with Ashbeck (Tesco mineral spring water). It all depends if you're brewing a kit / extract / AG, what kind of beer, what your tap water is like etc etc.

[Hoprocket]

Hi Ben, our water is not hard, but I leave it for 24 hrs to get rid of any chlorine etc, just wondering if spring water would be a better solution, when trying to replicate a type of brew.
I might try Ashbeck as many of you are using it. its worth a try anyway.
thanks.

[Goulders]

Spring water shouldn't make any difference. I would stick with the water you have got if it isn't "hard"

[mbarn]

Hi Ben, our water is not hard, but I leave it for 24 hrs to get rid of any chlorine etc, just wondering if spring water would be a better solution, when trying to replicate a type of brew.
I might try Ashbeck as many of you are using it. its worth a try anyway.
thanks.

Half a campden tablet does the trick if you don't want to wait .

[bobthebrewer]

Just wondering if the half a campden tab is per litre, per gallon or per 5 gallons.

[Cam]

5 gallons I think

[vacant]

1/2 campden tablet is plenty to treat the full amount of around 34 ltr for a target 23 ltr brew length.

Unless you have chloramine in your water you don't need to use campden tablets. Very few water companies use chloramine; I obtained a list a few months back but obviously that will change over time. For the time and bother of contacting your water company and getting an answer you may as well drop in 1/2 a tablet.

Assuming no chloramine, to remove chlorine let the water stand for 24 hours/overnight. However, heating water to mash and sparge temperatures is enough to drive off chlorine e.g. What are the various ways to remove chlorine/chloramine from tap water?:

"I heated the water (about 1 gallon) and measured its chlorine for each 10C (20F), and when reached about 60C (140F) the chlorine disappeared, before boiling. Just an empirical result."